


Darkness Falls

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Liminal Spaces [1]
Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, M/M, Mild Gore, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 03:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11865951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: After the first tale of Black Mountain, its keepers take time to rest together, as much as "rest" is possible in such a place.





	Darkness Falls

Wind rushes in the shadowed trees, the air’s haunting love song to the forest. The small campfire crackles and pops as pine-knots explode within the coals, the flames painting weak light across the rocks and roots. Crickets are beginning their nightly chorus as the cooling day stills the cicadas into somnolence. Otherwise all is silent on the mountain.

Silent, save for the soft murmured exchange between two beings.

“Wordslinger,” Goatman croons, brushing the Storyteller’s cheek with one gnarled claw. “You wove your story well.” In this liminal space between truth and tale, he is far more articulate and comprehensible than the Storyteller made him out to be.

The Storyteller closes his eyes, leaning into the touch. “I kept your truth from them as best as I could. If they’d realized you weren’t the real danger, they would have kept exploring, and they don’t have the knowledge to fight the—the greater battle.”

“They survived.” Goatman sounds pensive, as much as such a being can. “I didn’t hurt them?”

Given the ongoing caress of that claw over his skin, brushing up into the tangles of auburn curls that border his cheeks, it takes the Storyteller a moment to realize he’s been asked a question. “No. No, you didn’t hurt them. Not too badly.” He can’t bring himself to recount the injuries: scratches, cuts, bruises, even burns. Even less so the damage that he himself inflicted upon them: uncertainty, fear, helplessness, hopelessness.

“I don’t like to hurt people.”

“I know.” The Storyteller opens his blue eyes to the amber sadness of the Goatman’s. The horizontal pupils are not as startling as they once were, and the red light that filled them as he scared the teens away from the sour land is gone. He ruffles the soft brown fur on Goatman’s cheek; one of the gouges and gashes that Goatman himself suffered has matted it with dark blood. “I know you don’t.”

“Just want to keep them safe.”

“You’re doing all you can.” The Storyteller loops his right arm around the Goatman’s solid waist and leans his head against the Goatman’s broad shoulder, feeling Goatman’s strong left arm coming around his shoulders. “There’s only so much you can do to protect people.”

“ _We_ protect people,” Goatman corrects, pressing a fuzzy kiss to the top of the Storyteller’s head.

The Storyteller looks up and they share a long, silent look, communing without words. While words are all well and good, sometimes if the wrong words are spoken on Black Mountain in the dark, the night wind carries them to ears better not alerted. Ears that ought not know of the visitors to the mountain. Ears that ought not know of exploitable weaknesses, like those pesky emotions such as caring and trust.

The Storyteller looks down to read the word _Solve_ along the Goatman’s inner right forearm; he knows the word _Coagula_ to be inscribed on the arm currently clinging around his shoulder. “They’ll need to learn more about protecting themselves if they do return,” he says absently.

Goatman flinches and tenses. “You think they will return?”

“I hope not...  but humans are curious.”

“Too curious. Dig too deep. Look too closely.” The Goatman’s voice is cracking, sliding toward the less-human speech, and the Storyteller presses his lips to the hollow at the base of the Goatman’s throat, gently nuzzling until the arm around him eases its grip, relaxing back into an embrace instead of the desperate clinging of a man to a life preserver.

The Storyteller closes his eyes once more and lifts his left arm, hand palm up to offer his forearm. “Speaking of looking... will you? I don’t think I can.”

His companion’s fingers—and they are fingers now, still rough-tipped but with the actual claws retracted—flick open the button at the wrist of the Storyteller’s white shirt sleeve and push the fabric up to his elbow. With his eyes closed and face pressed into the fine taupe hair scattered across the Goatman’s shoulders and throat, the Storyteller can’t see the mark there, the livid red imprint on his pale skin.

“It is shut,” Goatman says gravely. “They are safely home.”

The Storyteller exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The Goatman rubs his calloused thumb over the symbol on the Storyteller’s arm. It’s a closed book, a simple rectangle with the hint of additional lines making it appear three-dimensional, a formless doodle on the front representing an uncertain title.

The Storyteller dreads the day that its pages will inevitably fall open once more.

**Author's Note:**

> If the words on the Goatman's arms mean nothing to you and you are curious, google "Baphomet".


End file.
